


call of the keeper

by miraclesinapril



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, Reincarnation, Slightly graphic depictions of violence, flangst, frequent talk of death and murder, only rated 'm' because 'cock' is not explicitly used
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 22:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20015719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraclesinapril/pseuds/miraclesinapril
Summary: The Keeper of the Lighthouse of All Oceans had one prayer. From the primeval times through the ages, his single prayer never changed. At long last, respite was bestowed.But a boon comes with a price, one paid in the soul’s weight of what it holds dear. For the gods give with one hand and joyously rapine with the other.





	1. one last moment of you

## PROLOGUE: ONE LAST MOMENT OF YOU

“Kill him!” they shouted, “Murderer!” 

They threw rotten vegetables and kitchen refuse in his face, they spat and aimed it between his eyes. People he had known most of his life, mothers that had seen him grow alongside their sons and fathers that called themselves protectors of all those that resided in their quaint town. They chanted for his death, their anger fueling them like a single vacillating mass of righteousness, warping their sense of judgement, their regard for his rights and innocence. 

But then no one ever had regard for him, not for his innocence, not for his rights, not his well being or peace of mind. He was Jongin the Fool, after all, Jongin the Insane. The orphans, the insane and the destitute were of one fate; abandoned, broken, left to scour the streets for any sustenance they could find. 

He had always been alone and now alone his head would roll to the gallows for something he had not done. Some days he could not recall his own name. Some days he could not recognize the street he had slept on for the better part of his life, since his family was slaughtered before his own eyes, their property seized and himself tossed out of their ancestral home. 

Some days he could only see the brightness of the sky and the clouds, his head inclined permanently as if making conversation with his family now beyond this realm. Some days, with his eyes open wide, he could only see darkness and hear whispers of foul hags telling him it was his fault that all his loved ones were gone. 

Perhaps they were right, that he was a fool, that he was not of sound mind. But there were things that did not require a sound mind, some things visceral and assured to us more than our own name because they were with us from the waters of the womb to the darkness of the grave. Jongin did not need a sound mind to be certain that he is no killer, he has done no crime but be found in the wrong place. 

He looked in their eyes, one by one, searching for… a sliver of the sanity they said he lacked, a sliver of compassion they sat in countless sermons for. Void. They were gripped by lust, crimson for indignant justice. 

Sound and fury passed over his head like he were dunked deep within a lake, his heart slowing down, chest kicking and screaming. He had never felt more alone. 

“You, Jongin, are hereby charged with murder and I sentence you to death.” the magistrate bellowed, the mob fell silent at his voice. 

The hangmen opened the stocks and yanked him upright. They herded him towards the noose, shoved between his shoulder blades with more force than necessary. What reason had he to resist? He was a condemned man. 

“Care to confess?” the corpulent magistrate asked, brow raised. Jongin looked him in the eye and spat. His grave was dug. 

He barely felt the sting of the hefty slap, his ears ringing and blood trickling from the side of his mouth. They manhandled his neck into the snare. His body ached from a night of being cold and bent into the stocks. He didn’t look at the crowds or the sniveling magistrate or his men as a last damning speech against him was made. 

A peaceful silence descended over him, all he could see was the white and blue sky and the black dots of birds gliding across the vast expanse. To be a bird, to feel the wind through his plumage, wouldn’t that be a life? He didn’t suppose birds put each other in stocks or accused each other of capital offenses, unfounded. Man called himself pure but walked the earth with malice. Why couldn’t Jongin have been born a bird? To see the lands and roam the world, to nest and flock and live a life of simple joys, simple struggles. 

The thought brought a smile to his face. He felt lighter. Was he dying? Had they pulled the ropes? He couldn’t tell. He closed his eyes. The magistrate’s grating voice was nowhere to be heard, the crowds chiming in with cheers taken with him. No one had told him death would be this peaceful. He would have ended his miserable existence long ago if he knew so. 

He opened his eyes and everything he had known was gone. He was in a room, dim and circular. There was a dark figure hunched over a desk at the wall. Stone cooled Jongin’s feet, stone on the walls as well and not the wood of the gallows floor. He scrambled up, back, away from the figure that turned to his gasps. 

Was this death? Enclosed in this small space with a dark angel who would beat him blue for all his earthly sins? Was Heaven, too, convinced of his crime? Had his tormentors been right? 

“Please,” he heard himself say, “I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t.” he met the wall and slid down to the stone floor, curling in on himself like a hedgehog. “Please, please, it wasn’t me,” he pleaded, tears streaming abound. 

“Excuse me?” the man, seeming megalithic in his stature, approached him. Jongin hid his face again, terror undoing the numb of his heart. If he was here to be punished, then he was guilty wasn’t he? God could not be wrong, could he? What was his mortal memory and conviction against his Creator’s adjudication? 

“Please,” he was begging for mercy now, for the clemency he had been too destitute and outlandish to be shown in life. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

He heard the man, the dark angel, crouch close. “Dear one?” he said and Jongin could not comprehend his words. 

“Darling, dear one, look at me.” 

Who was he talking to? Were they not alone in the room? Had more come to hurt him? 

Jongin was tired, so tired. He wanted to sleep, he wanted his mind to stop. But that was beyond him now, wasn’t it? Eternity had begun and he was condemned. 

A hand touched his shoulder gingerly and Jongin lifted his head, startled. The spot where they touched was cool, dousing. Surprisingly, the being before him was not looking at him with contempt or disdain or condescension. There was sadness in his eyes, twined with gentleness that shorted Jongin’s breath. 

“Dear one, my darling one,” he sighed quietly and touched Jongin’s forehead, brushing the tangled locks away. 

“M-me?” Jongin could not understand. Why was he being looked at like that? Like he was _something,_ like he mattered. Such countenances ceased being for him once his family had gone. 

“Only you,” the man said and tugged him to his chest. “What have they done to you?” his voice was shaky against Jongin’s head, his grip tight, firm, warm, like Jongin had always dreamt of being held. Was this Heaven then? Why was he being held? The last time he had been embraced was when he was seven years old and clutched his dying mother as she clutched him back. It had been an embrace filled with frost, as the warmth departed from her and left Jongin with a corpse and cooling blood. 

Jongin’s eyes flooded again, relief akin to pain twisting his chest. But strangely, the man’s embrace ensconced him like a stone in water, surrounding him, overwhelming him, and all disquietude left him, only comfort, security and warmth remained. Even his most gut churning memories seemed unreachable in the impregnable solace that imbued him.

“You are home,” the man stroked his back, whispered to the side of his head, “I am here. Nothing will harm you.” he held him tighter and Jongin felt the axis of his world shift. No one held him close, let alone closer. They pushed him away or gave him wide berth. He’d never been cradled like this. 

Jongin sobbed, though nothing hurt. Joy bubbled in his throat, frothed like a boiling fountain. Home, yes, his body recalled now what it felt like. He wanted to stay. He wanted to be here forever. Perhaps the trials of his life had been worth it. Here, in death, he found all that he had coveted. 


	2. call of the keeper

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz  
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:  
I love you as certain dark things are loved,  
secretly, between the shadow and the soul. 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   
I love you simply, without problems or pride:   
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving 

— Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XVII

Planks nodded with the ripples by the Bay of Boyenne and a mizzen vacillated on the waves in the open Sea of Hal. At the bed of each thalassic body slept the ruins of the crafts, its masters lost to salt and sea, where kelp was making a new home on the hull and fish floundered their way through the gunports. 

The sight of the calm waters was a grievous one, a cannonball to the gullet. The azure glimmer, the gentle lapping whispers, the cerulean skies. All were the sounds and sights of abject defeat and derision. 

A phantom breeze caressed his skin and danced around his ears as he leaned against the lantern pane. It carried the echo of the previous night, the screams of leather-lunged sailors as they called for help at every split-second emergence from the water, when the waves rose higher and spat them out to take a breath before reclaiming them to its depth like the most gruesome cosmic joke.

It carried the titter of the tempest, the chuckle of Lyr as the wind howled and unleashed His great fury. And the last note of the refrain in this song of steady sorrows: his own mangled grunts and shouts as he sent out his force to scour the skies and the seas. 

He had been but a babe when his mother had learnt his shrill cry was for the ailing or those pained around him. His mother’s wince when he accidentally bit her teat made him sob until his young lungs threatened to give out. His sister’s tears at scraping her knees sent him into a disconsolate spell for days and his foster father’s injuries at the forge made him writhe like the throbs and blisters were his own. 

He sensed pain like a hound, scented it out like a shark. He threw himself between men and swinging fists, and pushed children out of the line of parents’ poised palms. The animals called to him in their distress and his home was a nest for birds of broken wings and vagrants who got cut up in the streets. He absorbed their ache, took it into his bones like smoke and steamed it in his bloodstream like water on scorching tongs. Ultimately it was his surfeit empathy that became his hamartia and gifted him with a curse. 

The peels of pain rang out stronger. They no longer resembled the faint pangs that came with recollection. He sent out a ripple of sensors but all was placid. There were no fatally turbulent seas, no sailors or voyagers that needed saving. He scanned the sky for the cry of a curlew or squawk of an injured seagull but it was clear. There was nothing.

Inane instinct suggested for him to check his person, that he might be the source of pain but that could not be true. He was immune to physical harm. The gods, who made him as immortal as they were, ensured that. In any case, it didn’t feel like his own. 

He sent out stronger probing ripples, focusing on the nature of the emotion, trying to find a print. There were brands and gamuts of pain, each degree with its own sigil and each person their unique emblem. 

This one… This one had a floral print. Pressed lilacs and burning sage, it spread through his blood vessels until he was pulling himself to his feet, sailing in through the door to the lantern room and down, down until he was in the watch room where the floral flare was most potent. 

He stared at the figure hunched over his chair, gripping one of his leather-bound journals in their cupped palms. He stared as if waiting would disperse the mirage, for the clouds to close in and dispel the heat-born chimera before him. His mouth opened to speak. The cotton field established at his throat would not allow it. He could do nothing to help his shock induced immobilization until the figure, a man, turned and gasped at his unannounced presence.

“Hayla and all that is holy!” the man exclaimed, the book clumping to the boards. “You startled me!” 

Chanyeol searched for his wits a moment and found none. He bent to pick the journal and hand it to his guest. The man stared at him with the bemusement he felt himself and for the first time in a perhaps a century—he chose not to keep track this time—colour flooded to Chanyeol’s cheeks and the tips of his ears. 

“Hello.” he said at last, voice soft and not a grade above a whisper, “Who might you be?” 

“Who are _you?”_ the man countered with cold flatness. 

“I’m the Keeper. But you may call me Chanyeol.” 

“The Keeper…” the man’s void expression morphed into brief creases of forehead. The black markings on his face moved with it. 

Chanyeol’s attention had been stolen by the sudden pain and by the fact that there was another presence in his lighthouse, another _being_ there with him. He had not taken in the appearance of the man but he took the time now as the man did the same to him. 

He thought the black drape at the man’s back to be a robe or a cloak but the realization of what it was piqued marvel. It _was_ a cloak essentially, one made of rows of dark branches that twined together. They met at his torso and covered the length between his groin and abdomen. 

There were red and black tipped gossamer sheets between the branches, concealing the skin they did not. Butterflies, he realized. Scarlet peacock butterflies stuffed in the cracks and gathered like a bed of petals. 

“Keeper of what?” his voice remained cold, assessing. But there was pain emanating from him, strong and steady, and subconsciously Chanyeol was already sucking it in. If he was here, it meant things were gravely awry. And despite the joy of his presence, it was an anguish of its own to be aware of his suffering too. 

“This lighthouse.” 

“This is a lighthouse?” his hostility once again ceded to puzzlement. 

“It is.”

“How did you summon me here?”

“I didn’t.”

“I’m not a darkling to be summoned at will.” the man snapped, “Tell me why you brought me here.” 

“I did not summon you, dear one.” Chanyeol said earnestly, “You brought yourself here. Or rather, it is time and the gods have brought you to me.” 

“Hayla, wouldn’t it be useful to be Dark right now…” 

“Pardon?”

“To compel the truth from you.” the man said waspishly, fire lighting up his eyes, “As it happens, I’m not a Dark witch, so you’re a lucky fool.” 

“A witch?” is that what he was in this lifetime? Chanyeol’s lips curled. How things came full circle from time to time. His heart tugged and brimmed. Longing. Pain. Delight. He kept a rein on them, recalling how perplexing and distressing the summoning got for his dear one without having to deal with his eager countenance.

“Would you like to come upstairs?” 

“What is there upstairs?” 

“A view you might like.” there was yet to be a lifetime that the ocean did not steal his dear one’s breath. He cocked his head towards the staircase and turned, trusting he was being followed.

“I must say you are relatively calm for someone who manifested someplace unknown.” he commented as they made their way up. 

“I was under the ritual serenity. Which you disturbed. I must get back soon. Whatever you’ve brought me here for, I’d appreciate if you were hasty.” 

Despite knowing that the man could not leave the lighthouse for a week, Chanyeol’s chest took up the tune of a dirge at the thought of him leaving, at the thought of his dear one wanting to be away from him so soon, if ever. “A ritual? What kind?” 

“The kind that involves goat blood and bird bones and first born children.” the man said like a challenge, cold fire steady in his voice and Chanyeol knew he was only trying to intimidate him. It brought a discreet smile to his face. In the first life, their initial relationship was not so different from this, fire and smoke, back and forth. 

“Did you not say you’re not a dark witch?”

“Yes.” he could feel the man’s scowl, as if wishing he were truly Dark, “It was a rite of valediction actually.” he said in a quieter but casual voice. It did not fool Chanyeol. His pain flared and grabbed for Chanyeol, bringing him to falter in his steps briefly. 

“You lost someone?” he paused. It explained his manifestation. 

“Yes.”

The longing to hold him grew acutely. He wanted to take it away, he wanted to take away every pain he had ever endured and all that he would without him. “How recent?”

“It doesn’t matter. What do you want neophyte? You should know better than to summon random spirits.” 

“I did not summon you. I’m not a witch.” Chanyeol restated, coming upon the final steps to the lantern room.

“Oh Hayla. What on earth is this?” the man gasped, pushing past Chanyeol to get closer to the glass. 

“A lighthouse.”

“Yes—but—” he turned with the circumference of the tower, palms flat on the glass panels as if making sure it was real, tangible. “—why is it in the middle of the ocean? How… ?” he made another turn, mouth ajar, eyes wide with wonder and Chanyeol momentarily forgotten. 

The next time he made to pass, Chanyeol caught his arm and tugged him in, unable to help the need that burned in him, stoked by the child-like marvel exhibited by the man. The likeness of him to his original vessel was overwhelming. 

The world rolled and shifted beneath Chanyeol’s feet as he held his beloved in his arms. They were afloat among the cosmos, abreast on the crest of a the most exalting wave, riding stardust that fell from a shooting star that howled through time and space for their love. The universe rearranged itself. Millennia of sorrows, aches and loneliness became as inconsequential as a single floret floating from a dandelion. 

Chanyeol’s chest grew, his heart expanded like the seed of a morning glory soaking moisture to break its coat. Roughly a century he had waited for this moment. A century he’d gotten by on and relished the memory of countless moments identical to this.

His beloved stiffened in his arms and then melded like melting wax. Chanyeol was assailed by impressions of his history, presented in flashing emotion. Innocence, agony, confusion, love, betrayal, defiance, and a world more of agony that rattled Chanyeol, who had seen all kinds of pain, to the bone. 

He pulled back to cup the man’s face. He did not resist, most likely his soul recognizing what his body could not. The creases above his eyes smoothed out as Chanyeol suctioned away his current hurt, extinguishing it like a tiny flame. Chanyeol would do it a thousand times for him, for a thousand fold more crippling pain. 

“Your young body has seen much.” he mused sadly, stroking a hand down the man’s temple to his acute jaw, “Felt much. More than any as young as you ought to.” he whispered, voice cracking. 

It had been so long since he cried, it was a strange sensation to feel his eyes sting once more. There were days after his dear one left that he thought he might cry enough to add another ocean to the globe, that his tears might flood the galaxy, his pain crack the fabric of time itself. But as soon as his dear one vanished, so did the wells of his eyes. A desert tore him up on the inside, blazing arid coldness, until the century was up. 

“I don’t understand what’s happening.” the man admitted in a small voice, fear blooming in his eyes now that Chanyeol had dealt away the pain. “Is this what the afterlife is?” 

“No beloved,” Chanyeol shook his head, the man’s eyes widened again, “you are not dead. I will tell you—there’s so much to tell you and such little time. But first, won’t you tell me your name?” 

“Jongin,” the man, Jongin, said after some contemplation. There was power in names, Chanyeol could tell he knew that. And power indeed; the earth moved once more under Chanyeol’s feet, roaring, swaying, crumbling. _Jongin, Jongin, Jongin._

He had been Jongin, too, when they first met. 

“Jongin,” never in the millennia that he prayed to the gods did he utter anything with supplication as such. “Jongin,” he said again, because he could. It seemed to have the same effect on Jongin as it did him, for his body shuddered in his hold and his eyes dilated as they once did in the throes of pleasure beneath him, “The sun will set soon and it will get very cold. Will you come and let me give you something to wear?”

Jongin looked to the glass again, to the ocean where some of the water was blue as sapphires and some was dull and hued and some was see through, the horizon starting to bleed as the sun took a dip. To Chanyeol he shrugged and made a motion for him to lead. 

“Why am I here? You said the gods… the gods brought me here. Which gods?” 

“Mine.” Chanyeol replied, leading him to his chamber, “A cruel god of my time. You are here because this is my curse.” Jongin said nothing as they descended, parsing his words. Chanyeol took the chance to inquire again, “Who did you lose?” 

“My father.” Jongin replied after a long silence. They were in Chanyeol’s humble lodgings, a single bed pushed to the wall, another desk pushed to the adjacent wall with a smaller window overlooking the vast outside and an armoire for his scant belongings. “Huh.” Jongin mused, “That is strange.” 

“What is?” Chanyeol removed breeches and a spare white tunic.

“I feel… it’s…”

“Different? No pain?”

“Yes.” 

And there wouldn’t be any as long as he were with Chanyeol. “In the hour of your worst pain before you have completed the second decade of your life, you would be brought to me, for a week. Every life time. That is our curse—No, that is the repose granted us after a millennia of me being locked away here.” he laid the clothes on the bed for his beloved and gestured for him to come forward.

“Us?” Jongin frowned.

“Us.” Chanyeol confirmed with a smile, taking a step to meet Jongin halfway.

“You are saying… we are…” Jongin trailed off, appearing lost. Did he feel as intoxicated by Chanyeol as Chanyeol did him? “—soulmates.” he finished, bringing searching eyes to Chanyeol’s. 

“I think that… that is too weak a word for us.” 

“But I don’t know you.”

“That’s not true.” he yearned to take Jongin in his arms again. Touch his face, his hair, his heartbeat. “We have known each other many times. As many life times as there are stars in the night sky. You have magic, dear one, do you not? Am I lying? Do you sense dishonesty on me?” 

“No…” Jongin shook his head and with conviction he said, “but some people are good at appearing as they wish to be.” 

He was right, more than he would ever know. Chanyeol’s heart tugged. His beloved had always been perceptive. “I would never lie to you. But do what you must to get the truth.” 

Jongin stepped closer. He raised an unsure hand and Chanyeol inclined his head. Jongin slid beneath the hem of Chanyeol’s tunic. Chanyeol’s breath snagged, a full shudder thrumming through his being. So long, so long he waited for these hands to be on his person again. Jongin climbed, to centre of his chest, just an inch or two off his pulse. 

Chanyeol’s eyes closed against his wish, though he did not fight the urge with any gusto. Heaven was a mundane concept invented by those too naive to know better. Chanyeol knew better. 

But there weren’t a better word for Jongin’s touch, even as his palm heated under Chanyeol’s flesh, as his magic perforated his skin and stung, as it probed and coursed his bloodways in search of foulness, in search of truth. It could never outpower the euphoria that raised the hair on every inch of him because his love was at last _here_ and touching him. 

“You believe you are telling the truth.” Jongin whispered. 

Chanyeol opened his eyes to less guarded ones staring back, earnesty and curiosity making them large and wide like a black sky glittering with galaxies. He raised his hand to cup Jongin’s over the fabric and smiled. “I am.” 

To Chanyeol’s dismay Jongin removed himself and stepped away, turning to the bed. But he seemed looser, now that he was sure Chanyeol meant him no harm. 

He pointed a finger to his shoulder where the branches began and dragged it down the side of his body. The branches wilted away with his movement and created an opening for him to easily step out of the spindly garment. 

Chanyeol’s breath snagged again, as Jongin stood with his back to him, bare. He was long and lean, skin spun of the lightest sunbeams. His shoulders spanned like wings, waist narrowed acutely like the neck of a valley then spread, voluptuous and ample to his rear. His legs meandered in thick silken muscle, on the back of his thighs and calves, long and strong. Chanyeol almost fell to his knees behind him, in worship, in hunger. 

Jongin pulled the breeches on and turned, shirt in hand, catching Chanyeol entranced. 

“I apologize.” he lowered his gaze. He was not a savage. “What would you like to eat?”

“I’m not hungry. I want an explanation.” 

“I’ll tell you as you eat.” Chanyeol mollified. And added when Jongin remained uncertain, “Please.” it felt like it was eternity ago that he was allowed to care for him. He had always enjoyed that; doting on Jongin even when Jongin was a volatile young man who threw it back in his face as he grieved the strange and foreign land he wound up in. 

“Alright. I—I’ll have anything.” 

* * *

Chanyeol’s dining quarters were small. Most days his appetite was a myth, something of eternity of damnation being a terrible damper and this room was where he spent the least of his time in the lighthouse. Home was more than a word and a place, and never in the endless years would he describe his abode as homey. 

Except when Jongin was present, when he was home. 

The room was homey now, tall candles flickering intimate silhouettes, a lantern set on the only counter in the space, the small rickety table covered in wooden bowls and plates, brimming with food and drink. 

There was a plate of fish pie, fresh oysters and lemon sitting on a bed of broken ice, a great baked trout in the middle, a bowl of seared scallops and another of fresh mussels, lobster decorated in parsley and small roasted knobs of corn on the cob, thick shellfish soup, plate of various cheeses and the biggest, softest loaf of bread, of which Chanyeol had cut a piece from and was spreading the richest cream cheese on. 

He had conjured every food he could imagine, every delight of the sea. There were some lifetimes Jongin was no enthusiast of seafood. But evidently this life was not one of them. 

“I thought you said you were no witch.” Jongin said, astounded, as he took in the small banquet, procured from thin air. 

“Yes,” Chanyeol said from his side, Jongin at the head of the table. He let the knife down with a clatter and tried to keep a leash on the pride that puffed in his chest like a wild horse, something cold simmering behind it as he shrugged. “But I was granted some powers to survive out here. Unfortunately He cannot make me suffer as a deadman, after all.” 

Jongin frowned, lips pursing with a question but Chanyeol held the cheesed bread to his lips. “Open.” 

“I’m not an invalid.” Jongin’s features turned formidable. 

“No,” Chanyeol said gently, lowering the bread “but I would like to care for you while you are here. In any way that I am able. You would be doing me a kindness, really. Will you allow me?” 

Jongin studied him. Then he sloped his head, lips parting. 

With a big smile, Chanyeol raised the bread to meet him, watching his teeth sinking into chewy fluffy crumb. 

“You said,” Jongin started around the food, “that you would tell me.” 

“There is much to tell you, my dear one. So much.” Chanyeol poised the slice for Jongin to take another bite, “But time is not on our side, so I will condense as much I can.” 

He paused to wipe a bit of cream that smeared the corner of Jongin’s lips, bringing the finger to his mouth without thinking and licking it away. Jongin stared with owl eyes. Embarrassment, which was only an emotion Jongin could arouse, made him flush. “Apologies,” he said. 

To his surprise, Jongin just took his wrist and raised the bread to his lips himself. “I’ve never tasted bread this soft.” he confessed. He didn’t return Chanyeol’s smile, merely looked expectant so Chanyeol cleared his throat and stretched his legs. Jongin said nothing of the way their limbs entangled and Chanyeol tried to keep the pleased hum from consuming him.

“Once there was a boy, born of a mortal woman and a lesser god.” he began, reaching to cut another slice and setting the soup before Jongin. 

“The boy’s father never came to know about his son for he disappeared before his mother could deliver the news. It was nothing; the gods were known to abandon their half mortal bastards for they were believed to be weak and insignificant in their grand and immortal lives.” his cadence took the room, sound of far away waves creating a gentle lull beneath it. Jongin seemed riveted as he gradually ate more and Chanyeol continued.

“But these half mortal children were never known to inherit power, not great and potent ones at least. But this boy did. He kindled the power of earth and nature’s healing hand, grew stronger and stronger from boyhood to man. They called him Keeper of the Land, collecting the broken things to heal and nurture and free back into the wilds. One day when he was young, he came upon a boat washed ashore. 

“In it were three bodies, two passed and one boy on the verge of manhood clinging to life by a ribbon. He took the boy to his home and nursed him to health. No sooner had the boy got better than he tried to kill the Keeper of the Land. He was distraught and spoke a foreign tongue that wasn’t spoken in that land but the Keeper understood him for no tongue was foreign to him. 

"After a while the boy began to trust the Keeper and started healing people alongside him. In his land the boy was something rare and revered; a witch, knowledgeable in the art of nature and healing, as opposed to the Keeper who fumbled blindly with his power. Together they practiced and worked together and eventually they fell in love. 

"The days got brighter for the Keeper, for he took away everyone’s hurt but there was no one to take his own suffering away. His mother had gone before she could see him a man, his sister was murdered brutally by the one she was to call husband and he never knew his real father. Some saw him a bastard, regardless of what he did for the village and agonized him so. 

“But the boy, who grew to be a man next to the Keeper, was a steady lighthouse in his life, brightening his darkest nights and keeping him steadily steered for shore. The Keeper found much happiness in his life, taking joy in the good he could do, the lives he could improve, the hurt he could curb, the love he could give and all that he received. 

“Then something sinister crept into his village, plagued the residents and the nature that fringed there. The Ancient Ones at times grow bored and what more entertaining than vulnerable prey that walked the earth as though fearsome? Eventually the Keeper tracked down the source of the village’s misery; an Ancient couple disguised as children, taking refuge as orphans. 

“The Keeper managed to kill one of them and planned to annihilate the other too. But the remaining God discovered him before he could and placed a curse on him. “Keeper of the Land,” the God sneered, “what does a bastard mutt know about land and power? For as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, for as long as the moon beams silver and rivers run south, for as long as nights are dark and days are bright, you will guard the lonely oceans and keep the lighthouse of the world, you took my love and now you will never see yours again. I banish you now and to never again return.” 

“And so the Keeper was banished and his name was no longer Keeper of the Land but Keeper of the Lighthouse.” 

Jongin's attention had been so thoroughly captivated he only blinked at Chanyeol for an eternal moment when the tale came to an end. Half of the table was clean of food and Chanyeol could not have been more pleased. He took a helping of soup as he waited for Jongin to gather his thoughts, adding a scoop to his dear one's bowl, too.

"The boy who lived with the Keeper," Jongin began slowly, though his swallow told Chanyeol that he knew the answer to whatever he was about to ask, "what was his name?"

"He was called Jongin."

"Why can't I remember? There must be a way for me to-"

"No," Chanyeol sighed, feeling millennia perch on his shoulders, "there isn't. You may doubt me. You may not believe me. Faith," he sighed again, the word turning rancid on his tongue, "is another trial of this curse."

And Chanyeol wished he could say that they passed its test every time. It would be untrue. They passed. They failed. Everything given by the gods was double edged, silk and steel, seraphic exterior earthing infernal depths.

There was the possibility, the very real and soul wrenching possibility that Jongin would not believe him. That he would spend his week here convincing himself this was some sort of illusion, some fever dream. That this was not possible, that despite his extraordinary powers this was far beyond the bounds of possibility.

It had happened and it was only one of the thousand outcomes Chanyeol prayed hard against every time he felt that _whoosh_ announcing his beloved's presence. If worse came to worst, Jongin would, again, convince himself that Chanyeol was a liar mage that held him in captivity, especially considering the lifetime he was in and the reality he perceived.

"Alright," Jongin said and turned his body toward Chanyeol, "this is... much." he reached for Chanyeol's hand and Chanyeol twined their fingers gladly, "This magic of mine... this cursed magic, it relays your conviction and it's not just that... I feel... my father, he used to say that our souls are a bundle of silver threads and that we reached out and twined and tangled with one another in our lifetimes. And that the cords never cut, carried on with us after we die. That's why we feel kindred with some people more than others, why we are bound to some more than others. I feel it... with you..."

"And I you, every time you arrive." Chanyeol said happily, tightening his hold. "Your father sounds like a sagacious man."

"Yes," Jongin smiled, warm as candlelight, "he was brilliant."

"Would you tell me about him?"

"Yes."

"Alright, let's get you a blanket first, hm?" he noticed the slight clatter of his dear one's teeth, night falling quickly and completely in the vast desert of water.

A snap of his fingers did away with the uneaten food and procured another bowl, filled with strips of fruits and nuts instead. He guided Jongin back to his sleeping quarters and asked him to sit on the bed as he prepared. He shoved his desk to the other end of the room, fetched spare blankets and pillows from bottom shelf of his armoire and created a seating area on the floor where he cleared the desk from, small window right above.

Then he beckoned Jongin over, setting the snack bowl on the blanketed floor.

"Are you ready?" he asked as Jongin sat down next to him.

"For what?"

Chanyeol just smiled.

He waved his hand across the stone wall. The bricks shifted. Restructured. Transformed. The wall turned to glass, revealing the night ocean beyond.

"Hayla," Jongin breathed out, nonplussed. His head snapped between Chanyeol and the glass wall. "No witch my foot," he muttered and Chanyeol chuckled. He inched to the glass, putting a tentative and ascertaining hand on it, not unlike earlier. "How?" he demanded, "How does the water seem so close? Are we not high up in the lighthouse?"

"We are," Chanyeol assured him, "Think of the glass a... magnifier. A magnifying glass."

"So we haven't moved?" he still sounded breathless.

"No," he confirmed, "but you are yet to see the wonders I intend you to see, dear one." Chanyeol informed him.

"What else is there? Will you make the water rise? Or perhaps make it dance? Will you raise the sleeping sun or drown the moon?"

"Imaginative," Chanyeol tutted but laughed the next second at the scrunched features Jongin made, so ingenuous and endearing, "but you are close, actually."

He stood up and unlatched the window. Cupping his mouth, he called into the night, high pitched croaks and whistles. The shimmering water stirred. Shadows appeared beneath the lighthouse-illuminated surface. The shadows broke the surface, one by one in a multitude of shiny gunmetal heads and open beaks that whistled and trilled and grunted back.

"Goodness," Jongin scrambled away, back to the safety of the blanket and out of the glass's reach. "What are those creatures?" he sat closer to Chanyeol, slightly behind him and leaning in as if taking cover with a human shield.

"Dolphins." Chanyeol said with rolling amusement. "They are delightful, though sometimes dangerous."

"Is everything in the ocean not?"

"True," Chanyeol laughed, "to a degree. Some of the creatures in there are more scared of you than you are of them. And the ones that aren't... well. You'd definitely meet those down there. Dolphins only pose threat in their mating seasons. They are intelligent beings."

"As intelligent as you and I?"

"No, not quite. But watch," he got up to make some more noises to the outside and the dolphins all looked up, their beaks stretching in uncanny smiles before they all submerged, disappearing.

"Where—where did they—”

Promptly five heads appeared out of the water and jumped up together in a block of sleek silver bodies, flapping tails and fins, illuminated by a beam from the great lantern, and returned to the ocean in a big splash.

"Chanyeol," Jongin said in an astonished exhale, eyes glued to the spectacle in front, clutching Chanyeol's arm in a painful grasp. Chanyeol had no complaints. It was the first time Jongin spoke his name that day. It punched through his chest, the way the dolphins did out of the water, and gripped his heart in vines. Jongin's face was close, turned but close. It would be effortless to lean in and touch those inviting heavy lips with his.

"Yes, dear one?" he murmured, refraining.

"They—how did they know to do that?"

"I told you, they are intelligent." he said, unable to take his eyes away from Jongin's face. He'd always loved that spark, that flame of awe, wonder, learning. None had an esurience for new wonders and knowledge like his dear one did, often landing them in more trouble Chanyeol could ever accomplish on his own.

"Can we—can we go down there? Can I touch them?" Jongin asked in a winded rush, attesting to Chanyeol's memory of his character. A laugh wretched itself from Chanyeol's lips, surprised, exalted, enraptured.

"Were you not afraid just moments ago?"

"That was moments ago, I am hardly the same person."

"Oh?" Chanyeol couldn't help the laughter. It felt like his lungs were breathing air and not tar and salt for the first time in a century. The refreshment was driving him mad with joy, "The dolphins have made you a changed man, have they?"

"Yes, I doubt any of my cousins or friends have seen a dolphin in their life. Partly because we are landlocked and well, I don't think anyone has ever heard of them where I'm from." Jongin explained earnestly.

"Ah," Chanyeol shifted a little closer, like the accounts of Jongin's life would transfer to him via contact, "have you a big family then? Many friends?"

"I—I used to." Jongin dulled considerably, the flame of wonder snuffing out.

"What happened?" Chanyeol asked, treading carefully.

"They were hanged. And drowned. And burned." he sighed and after a split second hesitation, he laid his chin on Chanyeol's shoulder, breath tickling Chanyeol's neck as he spoke softly, sadly, "They were accused of witchcraft. Of consorting with the Devil, with evil. They were wrong about most of their identities. There were none more pious than some of my friends who saw the stake. But the crusade of the puritans is not an honest or just one. There is only pride and arbitrary guesswork and pigheadedness.

"I left a year ago to learn more of the Dark Arts under an old friend of my father's who was a master much older and accomplished, a doyen of all the covens. I was to stay with him for another few years to study as much as I could but a week ago I was called back home. When I arrived, my father's blood was warm on the gallows, falling in pools on the boards and seeping through the cracks to soak the earth.

"That land—those people—has my father's blood, my family, my friends'. Everyone around me is dying. It'll be a matter of time before they come for the rest of us, too. We only wish to learn more of the world and what we can do with all that we have. Is that so wrong? Do we deserve _this?"_

Fresh pain emanated from him, the crystal sharp ache that was injustice and hissing steaming shriek of stifled rage. Chanyeol enclosed his arms around him, tucking him into his side, absorbing it all, with a ceding kiss to a patch of skin dangerously close to the corner of his mouth.

"You have done nothing wrong," he pressed his lips to the silken crown smelling still of fresh flowers and sage. "Your magic is neither evil nor wrong."

Jongin buried himself closer in his arms, his face meeting Chanyeol's neck and with a powerful twinge, Chanyeol realized he was crying, his tears soaking his skin.

"There is no Devil, my love." he said, planting his fingers in Jongin's hair and stroking, "Only gods, many, many gods, some more merciful than others." he reached out with his mind, wrapping his dear one in a cloak of sensors and let them take in the injurious feelings like a sponge. Jongin snuggled even closer.

"In your first life, you were a witch too. What you are persecuted for now... People did not differentiate between witches and gods back then. They both performed miracles, they were one and the same to most. You were famous too, at that time. They called you Mercy, for that was what your skills brought. Mercy and relief." he kissed Jongin's head again and moved him gently between his legs, holding him to his chest and encompassing him like a living blanket. “My little Mercy.”

"I am sorry about your father, my love. You deserved more days, years, more life and laughter and memories with him."

"They called him weak, you know." Jongin said, voice small and pained, "They said he was controlled by his wife, for he never made decisions without consulting her. I never knew it was wrong until I saw my friends' fathers rebuke him and caught the town's whispers as I got older."

"Relinquishing power to accommodate the comforts and solace of a dear one does not sound weak or wrong to me."

Jongin hummed but said nothing further.

The waves washed up against the lighthouse, rising like arms raised in orison, bowing back down into flatness, only to rise again. The dolphins were nowhere to be seen, though shadows did flit by in the opaque surface. The silence was confounded by the billows of the ocean, whispering secrets in an ancient indecipherable language. An inextinguishable sentiment sparked and caught aflame inside Chanyeol, fomenting his being like kindling to a match, "I would burn them all to the ground for you."

Jongin perked up in his hold, tilting his head half way to peer at him sideways. "You would?"

"Yes." Chanyeol replied without hesitation. He resumed stroking his hair and pressed his lips to soft joint of Joning’s earlobe and face. "You are strong. You are intelligent. You are kind. The gallows are no place for you, dear one."

"No," Jongin swallowed thickly in agreement, "they're not."

"You will avenge your father, and the rest of your loved ones."

"Yes."

"They will wish they never saw the light of day."

"Yes." he said ardently, "Yes." he said again, breathlessly, and turned in Chanyeol's arms. Wild eyed and already breathing hard, he kissed Chanyeol.

Chanyeol was shoved off a precipice. He fell and fell and fell into the kiss. He cupped Jongin's face and brought him closer, impossibly close, so that he could feel their heartbeats in tandem as they touched lips, gentle, sure, testing. Jongin tilted his head and tongued into Chanyeol's mouth and Chanyeol couldn't help but moan softly. Though the kiss was slow, it was not languid. Every press, every stroke, every taste was urgent, burning, defenseless.

When their lungs could take no more, they parted. But Chanyeol couldn't bear it so he leaned in and pressed a few more innocuous grazes to Jongin's lips, soft, unwilling to sunder. Jongin heaved against him but yielded, let himself be kissed, probed briefly with tongue before being allowed to breathe again and then kissed once more like a salve to a blazing wound.

"You are sweetness." Chanyeol murmured on his lips, both of theirs slick and swollen. Jongin let out a sigh that caressed Chanyeol like a darling breeze, their foreheads rested together. His eyes were a parhelion in the night, two dark jewels glittering uninhibited back at Chanyeol with recognition, with rhapsody and Chanyeol wanted to bare them both on the floor there and make love to him like a savage.

"Do you want to see the dolphins dance?" he said instead, brushing the curls away from his beloved's face, locking them behind his ear. There was little time but there was time for that yet.

Jongin stayed in silent daze for a beat longer before nodding, focused on Chanyeol's lips. Frail to that gaze, Chanyeol yielded once more and brought their lips together for a long, deep kiss that spoke what time would not permit, the longing words could not transmit.

By the end of it Jongin looked more starstruck than before—to Chanyeol's undeniable pride—and allowed himself to be turned, to be held again to Chanyeol's chest, tight and dear, lips finding vulnerable skin time and time again, too often and purposeful to be accidental.

"Watch, my love. I am here. You are safe. Nothing can touch you here."

He let out a high whistle and nested his face in the crook of Jongin's neck, inhaling. The dolphins emerged from the water again, smiling and making joyous trills. They disappeared shortly before showing again. This time, as they shot in the air, they flipped twice in unison before swimming a little ways ahead, shooting out of the water another time, flips included, plumes of water splashing around them.

Jongin made marveled gasps and whines at the display of tricks, inadvertently moving back against Chanyeol, coming to grasp the hands secured around his torso, uttering Chanyeol’s name with precious excitement.

Chanyeol did not allow grief of what would eventually come shadow the moment. He tucked the encroaching thoughts of loneliness and what his world would be like once again in seven days into a sepulchre and threw away the key. Tonight his world was whole. Tonight his world was secure in his arms.

* * *

Seven days passed like it would for those begging the hours and minutes to transform to centuries and eons. They passed like water spilling from a trough, like lighting striking the ground.

They talked, they shared, they laughed. They made love with the ocean by their side, sun glaring from the horizon, moon glowing in endowment. They rediscovered one another, with the joy of brothers in arms standing to see one another once the din of the battle was done, with the mad abandon of ones intoxicated by each other's breath.

Chanyeol relayed the different life times Jongin had lived, the tales he shared with him, the people he had once been, the people who were always a part of him, and the more intricate details of their first life where it all began.

He kept Jongin out of the clutches of grief and pain and sadness, for they were greedy gods too and the gods had taken more than what they owed from them. This time was theirs, theirs alone.

The manifold creatures of the sea came when Chanyeol called, they greeted and sang and danced for his dear one. Some of the more grotesque creatures turned Jongin aghast and with reason too. They had open maws of serrated teeth, appendages crackling with electricity, eyes that had no whites—or had only whites—scales too rough to belong to fish, bodies bigger than any ship Jongin had ever laid eyes on, mottled flesh, trialing a sea of slime in their wake.

They could snap a man in two without preamble or swallow him whole or crush him to chalk with a snap of their jowls. But they wouldn't. Chanyeol had saved them, once or another. They were indebted to him and however awful they appeared to be, Chanyeol would call them friends, the only ones he could have.

They amused his beloved gladly and Jongin eventually saw them for what they were; harmless beings to those that showed appropriate care and respect. His thrill, however, was unmatched by anything else when the mermaids came to visit.

They were beautiful and unsettling and regal and Chanyeol could sympathize with his fascination but many were the times he had to physically keep Jongin from dashing out through the lantern room and into the ocean to take a swim with them. Jongin had a barrage of questions, all of which Chanyeol happily satisfied, with him pinned underneath. One could not be too cautious when their lover had the resolve of a firedrake.

With Jongin home, Chanyeol's appetite was whetted; in ways more than one. They shared enormous meals that Chanyeol conjured effortlessly, talking all the while because there weren’t enough seconds to tell to each other all that they wanted, all that they needed the other to know. Jongin had taken to being fed very quickly and feeding Chanyeol back as well, nestled in his lap, lifting morsels to Chanyeol's lips as Chanyeol alternated between putting food in his mouth and stealing kisses.

The food would disappear as soon as they needed it to, in favour of tearing clothes and bruising flesh. They were each other's obsidian sky, free to adorn with constellations and luminaries, taste galaxies on each other's lips and take each other to distant stars.

And when the pleasure burst and the aftermath seeped, there was a quiet moment where the world was nothing but all their muted pains and desperate longings unleashed. It dripped like acid into their honey pot, into their still waters of content and when it ate away at the fabric of their essence, Chanyeol pulled Jongin into the fold of his embrace, a single tear running down both of their cheeks like frozen quartz-drops, and took it all away.

They went on, in love and in stubborn bliss, for another borrowed day.

* * *

The dreaded day arrived. They didn't move from Chanyeol's bed. They had placed it closer to the glass wall, so that they could observe the ocean together, Chanyeol pressed up to Jongin's back, holding his waist, their legs braided like the deep roots of an old tree.

For all the world's words they had to share the previous days, there was nothing now. No string of vowels seemed sufficient to convey any of what they felt, no story significant enough to disturb the deafening comfort they shared or sickening sense of catastrophe that hung over them, dark and thunderous as a storm cloud.

"You will be happy," Chanyeol traced the deep line splitting Jongin's back, fingers lingering over each knob of his spine. "For not even the angels' halos shine as bright as you do in happiness." he moved his hair aside and kissed his nape, "You will be powerful." he moved his lips lower, pushing away the longer strands that rested there, "For you are a bastion of unbridled strength. I feel it every time we touch." he ran a languid hand down his chest, settling on his crotch.

"You will help many," his took him firmly, "for you are still my little Mercy," he whispered in his ear, stroking. "Most importantly," he kissed his cheek, "you will return to me," another kiss, towards his lips, "for we belong together and my heart beats for you." he covered his mouth with his own, swallowing his moans, and rose, to cover the body beneath, length for length, width to width.

He pushed Jongin's arms out and pressed fluttering kisses to his sides, his waist, his hips. He pinned them above his head and parted his legs. He cupped his face and kissed his lips, pushing in. They groaned and rocked together.

"I love you," Chanyeol said. Jongin curled and clung like a limpet, "“I have loved you as many people but just one soul, yours alone. I have loved you when you were Jongin, for that was what you were first, as you are now. My beloved, my darling, my dearest one." he smiled, though everything in him burned, burned the way the sun behind them did, scorching the sky, hourglass slipping quick.

"When they called you Axel, Marrion, Yunas, Wisaw, Samuel. I loved you. I have loved you as male, as female, as other. With long hair and none, with eyes that were light as yours are now dark, with a body lithe and a body round." there was no breathing room between their bodies, they were an anvil, their love a forge. They were melding, an alchemy with a simple equation. Two coalescing into one.

"I have loved you powerful, loved you an invalid, loved you blind and robbed of your hearing." a drop of tear landed on Jongin's cheek, Chanyeol kissed it away and then found his hand. They kept rocking together slowly, sweetly, maddeningly.

"I have loved you, I love you, and if ever the Wretched Ones take mercy on me at last, in ashes I will love you too. I need you to know that, to take that, forever, in your heart, no matter the lifetime or however you exist. I love you.” he whispered one last time, fervent and hot, boiling with need, fiery with severity.

Through tears Jongin leapt up and took his lips. There was blood in the kiss but they savoured it. It tasted of metal and the embers of something sweet already doomed.

"I'll come back," Jongin vowed between urgent kisses, "I have magic—I’ll—I’ll find a way to break—the—the curse—”

Chanyeol let the moment pervade to the depth of him that was first conceived. The mesh of their flesh stuck together in sweat and heat, the feeling of being ensconced deep inside the searing tightness of Jongin, its overwhelming intimacy and lust, the strands of Jongin's hair brushing his forehead where they were pressed together, the heartbeat indiscernible from his on his chest, the print of the only hand he wanted to hold fitted in his own, the scent of flowers and sting of love. Love; unending, unyielding, undying, an ocean of its own, tried by monsters and men, the elements and time, enduring, enduring, enduring, through the heat and rain, growing and gaining.

"You will not," Chanyeol said, smiling softly. The room was dimming around them, Jongin was caught in a cloud of golden rays, Chanyeol's own Icarus that had taken him to the sun. He had never seen anything more beautiful, he never would. Perhaps the curse was equitable. Was there one who could love and be loved by Jongin and acquire it all without recompense? Moments like these...

"Why?" Jongin gasped, moving, writhing, fighting to hold on to coherency as Chanyeol drove him deeper, closer, to the edge.

Chanyeol kissed him again. Their weeks scattered through time could amount to eternity and Chanyeol would never get enough of his lips.

"I love you," he said again, because it was the only time there were ears to hear it when he said it.

He took Jongin's hips and speared in, their bodies meeting harshly and breaking on each other like ceramic pots. He repeated and they broke—together—again and again and again until Jongin was sitting as he arched in ecstasy and Chanyeol was holding him tight enough for bones to croak and all the cosmos painted themselves behind their lids, brilliant and dazzling and plundering all coherent thought.

They came down together, slick with intimacy, wild and bright with desperation and exertion. There was barely a sliver of light left in the horizon. They held each other, hands shaping each other's faces to map the weight and warmth.

"I'll come back." Jongin whispered, something fearful in his voice. "I'll find whoever did this, Chanyeol," his voice broke, "I love you. I'll come back."

"My love," Chanyeol sighed, drunk on the sweetness of his dear one. He brushed the hair from Jongin's face and smiled at him, wanting him to see him happy, to have one more moment that didn't feel like they were being crushed from the inside.

"You'll forget," he said at least, when he could feel Jongin's presence start to grow lighter in his hold, "the moment you leave the lighthouse, you will forget me, you will forget everything that happened this past week. You will forget because it is the only way they can keep us apart."

Chanyeol closed his eyes. He hated this part. The part where Jongin's eyes widened, pupils taken over with horror, mouth agape like he glimpsed a terrible monster. It wasn't far from the truth.

Then Chanyeol's arms were empty and he was alone in the room. His pillows and sheets still smelled of lilacs and sage. He wouldn't move until all trace of the scent was faded.

And so it began, another cycle of this desolate vigil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's not a sad ending if they'll see each other again in a hundred years or so, right? :D 
> 
> so the idea for this fic was conceived when i saw [this picture](https://twitter.com/miraclesnapril/status/1155535632309137408)and the thought of lonely god chanyeol praying for a companion as he went about his lighthouse duties came to mind. then this birthed itself. anyway, i hope you liked it and dream of chankai's many meetings and reunions till the end of days with me. 
> 
> also if you're looking for a mood/playlist for this story, i wrote most of it while listening to ursine vulpine's 'respire' album, particularly endymion, one last moment of you and ark ascending on repeat. 
> 
> thank you for reading! come have a chat on [twitter](https://twitter.com/miraclesnapril)or [curious cat!](https://curiouscat.me/miraclesnapril)


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